In Lit_Cast Slovakia # 15 translator John Minahane tells Julia Sherwood why a new English translation of the anti-war cycle The Bloody Sonnets was needed and what their author Pavol Országh Hviezdoslav has in common with the Russian futurist poet Velemir Khlebnikov. His succinct and vivid characterisations of a range of Slovak writers from Ladislav Novomeský, Miroslav Válek and Milan Rúfus through Ivan Štrpka to Ivan Kolenič and Peter Macsovszky are accompanied by spirited readings from his translations of their works.